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Ponteareas, Spain and Canary Islands

How is it possible that after walking 18,5 kms, being dog dead tired, emotionally drained, I wake up at 02h00 and am ready to get up an go again? WIDE awake. The room is quiet, there is no light, and yet I cannot for the life of me fall asleep again. And it is not even as if my mind is busy – just lying there, awake. Eventually I decide to answer some long overdue emails, and by 04h00 try again. Lights off – I wake up at 09h00. Crazy!

I leave the beautiful (yet absurdly spoilt by the linen shops) town of Valenca to cross the massive iron bridge into Spain, just like that. An hour time difference, a different language, culture, food – another country. In the old days there would have been a passport control on either side – the buildings are still there. Now, just a walk across the border. Easy.

Tui is on the other side – another beautiful town with massive cathedrals and cobbled streets. At this point, I can honestly not face another cathedral. As I walk past the entrance, there is a tour group of about 60 people standing outside being lectured by their guide in Spanish. I see them all turn and look at me like one person. Did I forget to put my pants on? The guide turns to me and asks me something in Spanish, I explain no Spanish, and she says “oh english is very good. Are you a pilgrim?” And the entire group wait in eager anticipation. Now quite frankly, I prefer to refer to myself as a traveller rather than a pilgrim, but at that point there is no place for semantics. She was obviously telling the group about the pilgrimage when I appeared just at the right moment. When they hear that I am from South Africa, there are oooohs and aaaaahs all round, and I am being photographed like St. James himself had just appeared on the steps of the cathedral. In person. I give a little royal wave, my best smile and walk on. From the back of the crowd a young guy comes up to me – he is from Klerksdorp. Nou ja toe. He works on the cruise ships, and this is a tour group that he is accompanying as part of his work. (Not sure where they left the ship, we are a bit far away from the coast!).

It is clear that the Spaniards are very serious about their Caminho – suddenly there are signs every few meters. Some are decorated – one in tiny shells showing that there is still 114 kms left. Most of the road is sadly tarred, with little escapes into the forest every now and then. An interesting thing on today’s stretch is that on two occasions there is a waymark dispute. It is obvious that local businesses want the pilgrims to walk past their shops, bars and cafes, so they seem to manipulate the route through the waymarks! At one junction, the yellow arrows had been painted over several times, showing a route past an industrial area as apposed to a more scenic route along the river. Someone is obviuosly making it there business to restore the arrows, only to be painted over again. The war of the arrows. At another point, someone took yellow paint and sprayed about ten arrows on the tar road showing the scenic route. It is hilarious! This happens along most of the route into Redondela, where I decide to stay.

I dodge the Youth Hostel (2 dormitories with 40 beds each) and start hostal hunting. The first one offers a room for 40 euro, which I decline. Well, she could make it 35! I decline and start to walk away, ok then, 25 euros. Thank you very much, I will stay. The hotel is old, run down, stained carpets, musty smell, peeling paint. I think I am the only person staying there. But, it has a huge bath, thick towels (must have been shopping in Valenca), and great pillows. What more can a pilgrim traveller want? I decide it is time to do some laundry – something that by the smell of things I have put off for too long considering my limited wardrobe. So, like my Gran used to do with her heavy washing, I pile everything in the bath, loads of liquid soap (theirs) and trample out the dirt with my feet. Like a real gypsy, I hang it all over the balcony (yes, I have a balcony!) and go into town with a pair of training shorts and a long sleeve thermal vest, one blue and one black sock, and crocs. I have never in my life appeared in public looking like this, and must confess that I am quite self conscious about it. However, no one here will ever see me again. Ola.

So now I am sitting on the town square in my bedroom attire, watching the very elegant locals having their afternoon coffees. The pigeons are an absolute pest, and they target the lady across from me on purpose. She gets into a total rage, jumps up waving the newspaper at them, they fly away and come back to taunt her. What fun.

It is very interesting to see how many people still smoke. It is a full time job to try and find a place to sit outside that is not crowded with smokers. It is also interesting to see the number of very large optometrist and dentist practices. The latter seems to be the latest, state of the art practices, huge properties with marble, glass and fancy furniture. And children clothing stores – just about every fourth store sells designer baby and children clothes – dresses that look like something from Downtown Abbey. (I have never seen any children actually wearing these clothes here, but they do have many shops selling them!). It is also very noticeable how people with different abilities are integrated into society.

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